I am very excited to be on the Top Technology Trends panel this year. The trend that I will be talking about is Biohackerspace and DIYbio. Never heard of either of them? Check out this TED talk by molecular biologist, Ellen Jorgensen, who is also the founder of GenSpace in Brooklyn.

Won’t be attending the ALA conference this year? There will be live streaming! Follow the Twitter hashtag #ALATTT, and the live stream URL will be posted on the event day by @toptechtrends. The recording will also be made available later. (Big thanks to LITA Top Tech Trends Committee members for making this happen!)

All the trends that will be discussed by this year’s panelists are up on the Top Tech Trends page. This year’s trends include exciting topics such as Open hardware and Personally-tuned discovery system.

Is it really true that being an EL is your ticket to fame and glory within ALA?

Do you think you’re in your place in your career now because of the EL experience? Why and why not?What was the most important/memorable thing you learned from your EL experience?

If you have been one of the ALA Emerging Leaders, come chat with us and other ELs to talk about your experience!

B. Programs that I Will Be Attending

Now that I covered the programs where I will be speaking at, I may as well share some of the programs that I am planning to attend. Please comment if I missed anything great and hopefully this may help others in deciding what program to attend among the wide array of great choices.

Friday June 27

I am arriving at Las Vegas in the morning. If I can still function after the five hour flight and don’t crash at my hotel room, I will be at “Enough PHP to Be Dangerous” program to hang out with librarians who are interested in coding. This is not an official ALA program. But if you are interested in learning how to code, this should be on top of your list along with the LITA/ALCTS Library CodeYear IG Meeting on Saturday!

“Enough PHP to Be Dangerous” is an event organized by Tim Spalding at LibraryThing. It will be 9am-5pm at Embassy Suites Convention Center, three blocks from the Convention Center. To cover the cost of the room and the free lunch, donations will be appreciated ($55 per person). Hope you can support so that more programs like this will continue to take place in the future!

I have never been at a Taiga Forum meeting. So I am planning to check out the program at the Annual this year. The program description says it will cover the way search firms look for academic library AULs & ADs. I am currently in an AD position and so I am hoping that this program will also cover the leadership qualities and experience sought from current and future AULs and ADs.

Even if you are not in a AUL or AD position, if you are interested in learning how decision-makers are selected for an academic library leadership positions, this may be a useful program to you. Or like me if you are just curious about Taiga Forum, that will do as well since the Taiga Forum always produces a controversial position paper.

If you are curious about LITA, make sure to check out LITA Open House program. Then come to the LITA Happy Hour on Sunday. If you work in libraries and work with technologies, LITA is a great place for you to meet like-minded, super-friendly, and knowledgeable people.

I think public and academic libraries need to communicate and learn from each other more. This is the program that was recommended to me by Amy Garmer at Aspen Institute, whom I met at the Future of the Libraries Meeting this spring organized by ALA current president Barbara Stripling. She told me about the recent program she worked on at Aspen Institute, which interviewed many policy makers and various industry business people regarding the future of public libraries. It is likely that I will miss this because I have to go to the Top Tech Trends Committee meeting at the same time. But I think some of you may want to check this out!

ACRL New Members Discussion Group is a vibrant and friendly informal group that can be amazingly useful to new academic librarians and librarians-to-be. I highly recommend this meeting, and this year it has a great topic – the identity of academic librarians – and great speakers. There is a strong chance that if you like this group, you will end up hanging out with a lot of cool people at ACRL. It is at the same time as ACRL President’s Program: Financial Literacy at Your Library though. So you will have to make a wise choice!

Many librarians’ beloved program by sci-fi and fantasy authors organized by LITA Imagineering IG meeting. Come early to get free books! These are usually the only free books I take with me from the ALA conference I attend.

Sunday June 29

I am starting my 3-year term on the LITA board of directors after this year’s ALA Annual Conference. So I will be oriented at this meeting. If you are a LITA member and have any thoughts, ideas, opinions, please let me know or communicate with any other LITA board of directors. BTW, the current board member, Andromeda, wrote an interesting and informative blog post about the LITA budget for the next year. You should check it out if you are a LITA member!

I will be sad missing these other programs taking place at the same time. But maybe some of you would be lucky and can go!

Executive Board Meeting (NMRT) – My term as the NMRT Outreach Director ends at the end of the conference and I will be missing the meeting! But best of luck to the NEW NMRT board members!